Mardi Gras at the Sportsmen's with the Jambalaya Jazz Band

Back for another year of Fat Tuesday sounds and celebration, Jambalaya brings its New Orleans-inspired jazz to Black Rock's premier music venue on Tuesday, February 16 from 9 to 12 pm. 

With the classic Storyville-inspired three-man front line of clarinet (and soprano), trumpet, and trombone, Jambalaya recreates the music of the Crescent City in the tradition of Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Zutty Singleton, and Earl Fatha Hines. Filling in for both Fatha and Pops on the gig will be pianist and trumpet virtuoso Jon Seiger, who has traveled the world with all-star groups playing his two-fisted brand of swing and stride piano and delighting audiences with his dead-on Armstrong vocals. 

Behind la batterie, veteran Buffalo jazz drummer Tommy Kasperek lays down the insistent second line pulse nurtured by years of work on the New Orleans riverboats and honed in Bourbon Street dives, where it's known as 'the quintessential New Orleans art form--a jazz funeral without a body.' Formerly a stalwart of Michigan's infamous New Reformation Jazz Band, Craig 'Hurricane' Hodnett brings the swinging gravitas of the contrabass to create the soul and sonorous heart of every tune. Up front, Rochester's Floyd 'Herk' Hughes provides the glissandi, smears, and flashy plumbing of the tailgate trombone and world-renowned reedman Paul Preston wails above it all like a Sufi snake charmer on amphetamines. 

Don't miss this band.  

Tuesday, February 16 / The Sportsmen's Tavern / 326 Amherst Street, just west of Grant